cover image Out of Mao's Shadow: Stories from the Struggle for China's Soul

Out of Mao's Shadow: Stories from the Struggle for China's Soul

Philip P. Pan, . . Simon & Schuster, $28 (349pp) ISBN 978-1-4165-3705-2

As the Olympics focus the world's attention on China, an array of books examine that burgeoning country from a variety of perspectives.

Out of Mao's Shadow: Stories from the Struggle for China's Soul Philip P. Pan . Simon & Schuster , $28 (352p) ISBN 978-1-4165-3705-2

Ex-Washington Post Beijing bureau chief Pan focuses these 11 profiles on China's lonely dissidents: a filmmaker documents a Mao-era dissident who wrote a prison manifesto in her own blood; a doctor acclaimed for blowing the whistle on the SARS epidemic is arrested for writing about the Tiananmen Square massacre; an editor tests the party's tolerance for muckraking. These narratives show China's social and political tensions playing out through personal enmities, petty bribery and subtle moral compromises. Pan's stirring reportage shows that, even in China, the individual can make a difference—at a price. B&w photos. (June)